Break comes in Lincoln double murder case; random acts of violence

A 19-year-old Lincoln man has been arrested and charged with beating two men to death this past summer, apparently random acts of violence as part of gang activity.

Richard McLaughlin III is accused of beating 27-year-old David Mueller and 20-year-old Shane Walton to death with a baseball bat June 29th.

Lincoln Police Chief Jim Peschong said it appears McLaughlin targeted the two in his role as a member of the gang “True Blue Soldiers”.

“It does not appear that the two individuals, the victims, knew one another. It appears as those these deaths were the result of random acts of violence and that the perpetrator did not know the victims at all,” Peschong told reporters during a news conference on the arrest.

Mueller was killed first in the early morning hours of the 29th. Walton was killed about an hour later. Investigators could find no motive for the killings.

Peschong said such random acts of violence are unusual in Lincoln.

“It generally has not necessarily been a problem here, although the investigation on these two deaths does appear, right now anyway, that they truly may have been pretty well random in that some individuals that are claiming to be associated with a particular gang that was what they may have been doing on June 29th,” Perschong said.